Archive for September, 2004

Flaming Lips is one of those bands the members of which (Wayne in particular) seem, in addition to being great songwriters, are great, kind, wonderful people (the other notable band of that kind is Yo La Tengo). And yesterday their song “Race for the Prize” made me cry.

How can it be, that i so rarely care about lyrics at all and of all artists Flaming Lips moved me so much? They have a bunch of them — those beautiful and happy songs about injury, weakness, disappointment and death of course. That endless humanity. And “Race for the Prize” is one of the best: Two scientists are racing for the cure that is the prize … so determined … Theirs is to win if it kills them, they’re just humans with wives and children. It’s a cliché, it’s manipulative — and it works.

Listen to the song on the website (click on Music -> Soft Bulletin -> Race for the Prize). No, really, do it.

This is the real reason — the rest is just a rant: Because i’m home with my 100% secular parents and with motivation to surf the web, listen to some music and study some DBA’ing and without Hadar, her parents or any religious or non-religious friends to motivate me to fast. With my parents i am kinda less Jewish. It is a horrible description, but i can’t think of anything better.

Because Tish’a B’av has more historical significance, while Yom Kippur is “just” a commandment. So the secularist-nationalist satan inside me says that Tish’a B’av is important, and commandments are really just traditional superstitions. But, as stated above, this terrible blasphemy is nothing but a rant.

Hadar is home with her parents, fasting and not using electricity, fire or musical instruments. Pretty strict. It is quite likely that if i spent Yom Kippur with her (with or without her parents!) i would fast, even though she would probably not want to. Strange world …